Krishna Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Depiction in coinage (2nd century BCE)==== [[File:Vasudeva Krishna on a coin of Agathocles of Bactria circa 180 BCE.jpg|thumb|upright|{{center|[[Vāsudeva]]-Krishna, on a coin of [[Agathocles of Bactria]], {{circa}}{{nbsp}}180{{nbsp}}BCE.<ref name="US">{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Upinder |title=A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century |date=2008 |publisher=Pearson Education India |isbn=978-81-317-1120-0 |pages=436–438 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3lUIIYxWkEC&pg=PA437 |language=en}}</ref><ref>[[Osmund Bopearachchi]], [https://www.academia.edu/25807197 Emergence of Viṣṇu and Śiva Images in India: Numismatic and Sculptural Evidence], 2016.</ref> This is "the earliest unambiguous image" of the deity.<ref name="BRILL">{{cite book |last1=Srinivasan |first1=Doris |title=Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art |date=1997 |publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-10758-8 |page=215 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vZheP9dIX9wC&pg=PA215 |language=en}}</ref>}}]] Around 180 BCE, the [[Indo-Greek]] king [[Agathocles of Bactria|Agathocles]] issued some coinage (discovered in [[Ai-Khanoum]], Afghanistan) bearing images of deities that are now interpreted as being related to [[Vaisnava]] imagery in India.<ref name="Bopearachchi"/><ref>Audouin, Rémy, and Paul Bernard, "[http://www.persee.fr/doc/numi_0484-8942_1974_num_6_16_1062 Trésor de monnaies indiennes et indo-grecques d'Aï Khanoum (Afghanistan). II. Les monnaies indo-grecques.]" Revue numismatique{{nbsp}}6, no.{{nbsp}}16 (1974), pp.{{nbsp}}6–41 (in French).</ref> The deities displayed on the coins appear to be [[Saṃkarṣaṇa]]-[[Balarama]] with attributes consisting of the [[Gada (mace)|Gada]] mace and the [[plow]], and Vāsudeva-Krishna with attributes of the [[Shankha]] (conch) and the [[Sudarshana Chakra]] wheel.<ref name="Bopearachchi" /><ref>Nilakanth Purushottam Joshi, Iconography of Balarāma, Abhinav Publications, 1979, [https://books.google.com/books?id=5vd-lKzyFg0C&pg=PA22 p. 22]</ref> According to [[Bopearachchi]], the [[headdress]] of the deity is actually a misrepresentation of a shaft with a half-moon parasol on top ([[chattra]]).<ref name="Bopearachchi" /> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page